The year's not even a month old and already the CPU market is shaping up for another exciting 12 months for the consumer. Following AMD's speed bumped Athlon 64 3400+ on 6 January it's now Intel's turn to play its hand and introduce the latest incarnation of the Pentium 4 processor, Prescott, writes Wayne Brooker.

IBM Global Services' attempts to extend its outsourcing reach beyond its clients' IT infrastructure, and into its back-office departments such as finance and accounting, have been met with skepticism from fast food giant McDonalds. The resistance highlights some of the major issues facing IT services companies trying to establish themselves in new outsourcing areas.

We have in the past made merry at the linguistic deficiencies of 419 advance fee fraudsters, but nothing the boys from Lagos have ever issued even comes close to what some chancer has just sent reader Joskyn Jones.

Visto, the acquisition-hungry US firm, has bought Psion Software for an undisclosed sum. This will give it ownership of Psion's Transcend Mail, a push email/PIM product for mobile devices. The company is to integrate the technology into its portfolio of software for mobile operators.

A year ago, 10 Downing Street published a dossier on Iraq's security and intelligence organisations. It was cited by none other than Colin Powell in his address to the United Nations. Then a lecturer in politics at Cambridge University discovered that much of the 19-page document was copied from three different articles, one written by a graduate student.

Our spine-tingling discovery of the number "19" on the surface of Mars last week - proof were it needed that we are all in fact descended from extraterrestrial robot beings - immediately provoked a spectacular meteor storm of emails.

A potential stumbling block to Vodafone launching a bid for AT&T Wireless was removed last week, after Verizon Communications, the majority shareholder of Verizon Wireless, said it would not oppose a decision by Vodafone to sell its 45% Verizon Wireless stake. Verizon Wireless is a successful business, but Vodafone prefers to have a controlling stake in its ventures.

IBM on Monday kicked off phase one of a new sales strategy that includes bundles of middleware targeted at specific vertical markets. And the first such market to be hit is the financial services sector.

More than half (57 per cent) of the work-age population will benefit from 'accessible technology', according to Forrester Research. And numbers will grow as the demographic of the West shifts to the grey and a greater proportion of the population experience problems with sight, hearing and dexterity.